1 - 4 digital concert recordings made in Poschiavo, Switzerland at the UNCOOL festival
by Lara Persia (RSI) - 2007 May 17
5 - 7 digital studio recordings made near London
by Philipp Wachsmann - 2006 September 9
Total time 69:25

All previously unissued

Excerpts from sleeve notes:

When I first put this CD on and started to listen from the beginning, I didn't
recognise the characteristic sounds or distinguish the 'voice' of each musician,
although I know them all well and have had the pleasure of hearing them many times
in various contexts. This was a thoughtful, rigorous and austere string quartet
music, very focused and in a register (musical and intellectual) that seemed new
to me. It was only towards the very end of the first long piece that I started to
hear very small snatches of playing in which I really recognised Philipp Wachsmann's
lyricism, Charlotte Hug's command of and fascination with textures, John Edwards'
vitality and dynamic range and Marcio Mattos' resourcefulness. As I listened on
through the CD, I continued to hear more that sounded new and less that was familiar,
and it was very thrilling to listen to these new sounds and ways of interacting.

This made me reflect on the productive tension, in life and in music, between
improvising and being yourself – not that these two things are diametrical opposites,
but they do tend to pull in different directions, and are sometimes hard to reconcile.

It's evident that one is required to be literally oneself – and much beautiful
music comes out of the plain joyfulness of people being and expressing truly who
they are – but the thing that's specific to improvising is that it demands that
the music be made afresh each time: the more aspects of the music are unique to
that moment, the more improvised that music is.

This means that after working for a long time on improvising, the musician
eventually comes up against the fact that the self that she brings to each new
playing situation is still the same one. What to do? Clearly, it's possible to make
novel sounds at random, but this is a bit of a lottery and means the musician has
let go perhaps too completely of herself, her love and understanding of particular
kinds of sounds, gestures, moods... and maybe risks letting go of her reasons for
playing music in the first place.

On the other hand, there is a lot of excellent music made in which players remain
frankly themselves and rejoice in an interaction that, though improvised, still
has something familiar about it, like a stimulating family conversation.

What I hear on this CD is four people who have worked so long and hard on improvising,
and are so brave and trusting of each other, that when they intersect here they
leave their usual ways of being and playing behind and forge new ways, and completely
new music, for the occasion. This balancing act, this apotheosis of communication,
is what makes music indispensable to the human organism.

CAROLINE KRAABEL (2009)

Excerpts from reviews:

"Refreshingly, the music here seeks to neither emulate nor deliberately
avoid conventional notions of the string quartet. Instead, each of the four players
brings their own distinctive voice and approach to their instrument plus openness
to the music produced by the others. Across four tracks recorded live in concert
in Switzerland in May 2007 and three studio tracks recorded in London the previous
September, the four voices interact and immerse themselves in the collective identity
of the quartet.

Telltale trademark traces of the individuals remain evident - Wachsmann's soaring
glissandi, Hug's simultaneous bowing of all four viola strings, the gravitas of
Mattos's stately bowing, Edwards' percussive blows to the body of his bass - yet
the individual voices are more often subsumed into a dialogue in which their
contributions overlap both in time and in frequency, creating a whole greater
than any of its parts. It is a fascinating exercise to try to remain focused on
one player throughout, but ultimately that is as difficult as following one particular
strand through a richly woven tapestry."

"'Gocce stellari' (stellar droplets) are stars born through the force
of gravity, as gas and dust slowly contract together until nuclear fusion ignites
them. It's a nifty analogy for the music, the four players concentrating the 'qas
and dust' of free improvisation (fine, texture, and timbre) to create spontaneous
constructions full of austere intensity. Mining the essence of their instruments,
they utilize an expansive array of sound from dark arco to dry scratches, buzzing
overtones, and richly layered harmonics. Even at its freest, there's a conceptual
rigor to the music, which gracefully bridges the worlds of contemporary classical
music and free improvisation."

MICHAEL ROSENSTEIN - SIGNAL TO NOISE 2010

"The title (Italian for 'stellar droplets') comes from Orion Nebula's
newborn stars, generated by the nuclear fusion of huge globules of gas and dust;
stars are also the origin of the seven tracks' names. Thus, associating the adjective
'stellar' to the playing heard in this CD becomes commonplace. Philipp Wachsmann
(violin), Charlotte Hug (viola), Marcio Mattos (cello) and John Edwards (double
bass) conduct business with a combination of formal respect for the configurational
clarity of a hypothetical composition: these pieces impressively resemble the
upshot of written scores - with more than a hint to XX century's literature -
exalted and enriched by the kind of impulsive improvisation that one expects from
musicians at this level of instrumental command.

In the notes, Caroline Kraabel makes a very good point about the initial trouble
in recognising the single voices even after many years of listening to them. Here
lies the reason of this record's accomplishment: the global yield of polychrome
pitches, fractal percussiveness and structural multiplicity overcome the difficulties
elicited by the thorny convolutions and atonal spirals - permeated by a measure
of intransigency - that the quartet constantly delivers. The performers apply
a logic of intelligibility to everything they play, dividing the stereo space
in well-defined sectors, remaining disengaged from rigid rules yet appearing solid
all along. The typical characters connected to contemporary music for strings
- including the exploitation of rarely attended parts of the instruments - are
astutely employed, proof of a technically enlightened maturity. Serialism, lyricism,
dronage and the average reviewer's pet quote - Lachenmann (yeah, let's go and
join the name-throwing party…) - get evoked and instantly disposed of in a matter
of seconds.

Ultimately, the best way to tackle GOCCE STELLARI is absorbing it little
by little over repeated listens, at first being flattened and somewhat pushed
back by its bittersweet vigour, then dissecting the components to individuate
and separate nuances and details. Both acts lead to the same conclusion: this
is a persuasive record."

"Since this blog has often turned its focus towards the twin poles of
free improvisation and contemporary classical I figured, why not post an album
that combines both of them, and in an interesting way at that? What we have here
are four string players forming a string quartet, indeed one of the ensemble forms
most rigorously associated with contemporary classical music, intent on improvising
their way against the established cultural grain. And with names such as Philipp
Wachsmann, Charlotte Hug, Marcio Mattos and John Edwards, such an ambitious project
does not seem out of reach of success.

And succeed it does, at least to my humble tastes. As expected, the group is
very much focused on texture, timbre and spontaneous interaction, as opposed to
the more commonly rhythmical and melodious workouts often found within the classical
music world. Strings rumble, screech, drone and creak in all ways imaginable,
the players all the time upholding a certain tension, effectively giving the project
the frame necessary for it not to feel unfocused or random. Thankfully, though,
there's also a lot of diversity (in relative terms, of course) to these pieces,
and a sense of the four of them wanting to create new textures and sounds in a
freer way than what's usually the case with this instrumentation. What's perhaps
most surprising, though, is how much it still sounds like a modern atonal composition,
which might be mostly due to the performers' listening skills and sense for somewhat
traditional dynamics

All in all, I found this an interesting and very enjoyable album, and, as a
result of the concept, it should appeal to fans of both contemporary classical
and free improv (or none, depending on how much of a purist you are), and indeed
to readers of this blog. Enjoy!"